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We've got some news for you, inbound marketers, and it might come as quite a shock: your job doesn't necessarily stop at lead generation (GASP!). Just because a website visitor has downloaded your awesome ebook or registered for your informative webinar doesn't exactly mean he or she is ready to chat with one of your sales reps and jump right into a purchasing decision. Image Credit: Zazzle.com. MORE

Pinterest has made a big splash on the social media scene, by quickly earning passionate users who log multiple hours per day on the site. Pinterest saw a 4,000% increase in site traffic from June to December of last year, and many consumer-facing and female-centric brands are already using it well. Here are four reasons B2B should start to look into using Pinterest. 1. SEO value of inbound links. MORE

Tweet In his most recent post , Dave Green pointed out how marketers invest most of their budget on trade shows even though it ranks fourth in effectiveness. He went on to explain how to get a better return on your trade-show investment through lead scoring. Now I’m going to share nine tactics that will drive those lead scores – and your ROI – even higher: Do thorough research. Take note. MORE

Here are the top Internet strategy, marketing and technology links for the week of January 14, 2012… . Some Do’s and Don’ts of Social Updating (Marketing Profs Daily). Forget Blogging as Usual: 5 Outrageous Tips for Super-sized Attention (ProBlogger). Mastering the Art of Slow Blogging (ProBlogger). Why Search Marketers Are Grabbing the Long Tail (Marketing Profs Daily). MORE

Over the years I’ve assembled a book of sample one sheets that I use to review with clients. With these 1-sheet samples I’ve been able to point out some of the “Do’s” and “Don’ts” of creating marketing one-pagers. The sample book has been a hit at the 1-sheet workshops that I help teach for ProVisors. What are you selling? What is unique about it? MORE

Looking to improve revenue results? Then don’t blast out emails or buy PPC ads. Instead, invest in the foundation of great B2B marketing programs – Buyer Personas. In order to drive results, you need customer personas – deep understanding of prospective buyers of your products and services. In addition, Find New Customers worked with our client Keyedin Corp. MORE

It’s nice to know that what happens in Vegas stays there. But with Microsoft’s announced departure from the Consumer Electronics Show, there will be fewer secrets in Glitter Gulch. Or not. Steve Ballmer’s opening-day keynote last week apparently conjured up a little déjà vu , with many of his product announcements having been heard before – more than once. There is even some speculation in the press and blogosphere that Microsoft’s decision to exit may not have been entirely its own. What is interesting, though, is Microsoft’s official explanation for ending its starring role. MORE

Image via Wikipedia. If you care about how your site is found in organic search, you must spend some of your time thinking about search engine optimization (SEO). In the olden days (2005), certain kinds of content had no shot of showing up in the search index (and thus, could never be found). Not quite. I don’t want to downplay the amazing strides that have been made by the Googlebot. MORE

Image via Wikipedia. always tell clients that it is no longer enough to be beautiful when it comes to marketing online. The Internet has become more like an Oscar after-party than it is like the airport Ramada. Online, you’re never the lone beauty in the hotel lounge. Online, you’re surrounded by equal or greater beauties. Mind you, there are exceptions. MORE

Social media has gone from being a pastime to a necessary component of any brand and business. To build up your stockpile of social media knowledge, you need to stay informed of the latest news and trends by reading the best blogs in the business. As a rule, I also did not include any blogs that I recommended you follow in 2011. Enjoy! Recommended blog post: 10 Rules for Epic B2B Blogging. Thanks! MORE

Once you move beyond the generic “add connections” option that LinkedIn has, you might want to specifically search for and increase your connections with people aligned with whatever connection policy you might have. The challenge is that restrictions exist within LinkedIn that may prevent you from inviting others you don’t personally know. Also mention how you can help them. LinkedIn MORE

A guest post by {grow} community member Helen Brown. Let me tell you a story: Back in the 1980s there was a brand war, and it was a big deal at the time. Named the Cola Wars, it was a knock-down, drag-out fight to decide which of the two mega brands of cola was better, Coke or Pepsi. Both felt that neither could survive while the other lived, and you, the consumer, had to choose. Every. MORE

Socialbakers released an infographic a while back, providing an overview of the social networks that are important for organizations in 2012. The infographic is based on data that look at how some major brands and media companies do on the big social networks, taking into account three different parameters. In a blog post on [.]. Blog Connected marketing Research Social media marketing Facebook Google+ Jan Rezab social networks socialbakers Twitter MORE

Notice the (Editor’s note) on each item. Shane Snow is a New York-based tech journalist and co-founder of Contently.com , a marketplace for brand publishers and journalists. In 2010, New York City startup, Birchbox launched a blog about beauty products before it had any customers. The beauty sample delivery service – and its blog – exploded in popularity. million monthly unique visitors. MORE

In his weekly B2B marketing show, Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers ( [link] ) shares a key marketing lesson using wit and humor. We hope you’ll tune in each week for a new Laugh and Learn show as well as our weekly Mad Marketing TV show. In this show, he illustrates the importance of selecting words carefully. Self Education content marketing Laugh and Learn MORE

Despite any recent recent rants you may have seen about how blogging is dead or blogs are passé , the fact of the matter is that business blogging is now more important than ever. With Google’s most recent Panda algorithm updates, attributes like content freshness and social signals (strengths of blogs, not corporate websites) will gain increased importance in search ranking. Stuart W. MORE

gShift Labs is the first (at least that I’m aware of ) integrated software package for managing web presence optimization (WPO). Given that WPO is the fusion of SEO, social media, interactive PR , and online reputation management, that’s a tall order. But based on a good look at the product, gShift has a great headstart on meeting the challenges of this discipline. Features. Background. MORE

Google, Plus Your World was rolled out just over a week ago, and the online world has adopted the rallying call to get onto Google+ for the SEO benefits. Multiple articles point to brand pages as the solution. The problem is, Google+ Brand Pages are not the ticket to SEO success. Getting Into Your Audience’s Trusted World There are three ways to get into Your Audience’s Trusted World. MORE

With content marketing gaining in mindshare and importance, it’s valuable to keep pace with developments in this area. For the latest research on content marketing, I encourage you to download the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report published by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs (full disclosure: I helped author the report). Challenges. MORE

One of my “no-brainer” marketing predictions for 2012 was that mobile advertising and app development would begin to take up more than the meager 1% or less of marketing spend as reported by businesses in 2011. Well it didn’t take long for reports to surface that both were taking off – maybe even faster than mobility experts predicted. Mobile Ad Revenue. Mobile App Usage. MORE

Another Friday is upon us, bringing with it all the goodness that so many of us look forward to each week. And that includes our roundup of the posts that got us thinking, inspired an "aha!" " moment, or just plain entertained us. Hope they do the same for you. Enjoy! Predictions for Location-Based Marketing in 2012 by Adam Steinberg @adams472. Location intelligence and mobile marketing are on the top of many trends to watch for 2012 but Steinberg takes it to the next level with 8 predictions just around location marketing. What Happens When Inbound Marketing Works? MORE

When building a collaborative workplace, a “build it and they will come” attitude is a recipe for disappointment. Effective deployment strategies demand a mix of promotion, training and tolerance of the adoption strategies that employees choose. Speakers at Lotusphere today offered tips on rolling out collaboration platforms to employees who aren’t accustomed to the concept. MORE

In our most recent #B2Bchat discussion, we looked at a number of social networks and how B2B marketers can take advantage of them, and once again I was pleased to have the opportunity to moderate the lively discussion. Rather than a deep dive into a single network or objective, the discussion quickly touched on a number of social networks or platforms. MORE

2012 Content Marketing – how did we get here so fast? I’ve been reviewing my 2011 blog posts, email broadcasts, videos , and taking stock. hope you’re doing the same, so you’ll get an idea of what’s needed for your own business in 2012. Photo courtesy Rawich/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net ). Which posts generated the most comments? What about you? What are your favorites? MORE

By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist. Advertising Age just published its Book of Ten’s issue. In it they chronicle this year’s Top 10 Social Media Blunders. The list is entertaining and disheartening. Entertaining because of the shenanigans and plain idiotic social media mistakes committed by some very smart people. Dropping the “F” Bomb. Kenneth Cole and the Arab Spring. MORE

Michael J. Fox kicks off as guest speaker, telling about his diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 29 and how it sparked his interest in the Internet. “I found out I was part of a community.” ” Web activism has enabled him to raise $270 million to battle Parkinson’s. Leverage skills and distribute workload. Improve forecasting effectiveness. Content. MORE

Have you ever considered the ways a blog can help you get a job? I meet a lot of young people entering the work force and I always recommend blogging as a way to get ahead … in almost any career. Here’s why: 1) Show what you’re made of. In any interview, you normally have to try to convince people that you know what you know. In a blog, you can SHOW them. They’ll do it. MORE

Quite simply, the marketing content you create will never be good enough. You will need to produce better content every single day. Today, someone trumped your content. Just now, they become a more useful source of information to your audience. How Your Content was Trumped Content quality is relative. Your content may have been good when it was created, but now it’s merely average. MORE

Mad Marketing TV – the most TV-like show in the industry, bring you top marketing experts every week. These top experts share important marketing advice every B2B marketer can take and use immediately. Let me introduce you to the superb companies behind the show. Please check all of them out. The Sponsor (primary). Act-On Software , marketing automation software for the Fortune 5,000,000. MORE

Early January can be a frustrating time waiting for the corporate gurus to decide what the 2012 priorities are and what we will spend our time on this year. I too have been interested in a number of "trends" blog posts recently. Silverpop produced a list of their Top 5 Most Popular slideshares of 2011. One of the included was 7 Trends to Watch in 2012. How is that for a trendy mind shift. MORE

Buyer personas are a crucial component of successful inbound marketing, particularly for the sales and marketing departments. After all, the marketing team needs to know to whom they are marketing, and the sales team needs to know to whom they are selling. Before you spend time and money on research to help define your personas, ask yourself these questions about your target audience. To Google? MORE

Google, Plus Your World was rolled out just over a week ago, and the online world has adopted the rallying call to get onto Google+ for the SEO benefits. Multiple articles point to brand pages as the solution. The problem is, Google+ Brand Pages are not the ticket to SEO success. Getting Into Your Audience’s Trusted World There are three ways to get into Your Audience’s Trusted World.

Despite any recent recent rants you may have seen about how blogging is dead or blogs are passé , the fact of the matter is that business blogging is now more important than ever. With Google’s most recent Panda algorithm updates, attributes like content freshness and social signals (strengths of blogs, not corporate websites) will gain increased importance in search ranking. Stuart W.

Tweet In his most recent post , Dave Green pointed out how marketers invest most of their budget on trade shows even though it ranks fourth in effectiveness. He went on to explain how to get a better return on your trade-show investment through lead scoring. Now I’m going to share nine tactics that will drive those lead scores – and your ROI – even higher: Do thorough research. Take note.

Image via Wikipedia. always tell clients that it is no longer enough to be beautiful when it comes to marketing online. The Internet has become more like an Oscar after-party than it is like the airport Ramada. Online, you’re never the lone beauty in the hotel lounge. Online, you’re surrounded by equal or greater beauties. Mind you, there are exceptions.

Have you ever considered the ways a blog can help you get a job? I meet a lot of young people entering the work force and I always recommend blogging as a way to get ahead … in almost any career. Here’s why: 1) Show what you’re made of. In any interview, you normally have to try to convince people that you know what you know. In a blog, you can SHOW them. They’ll do it.

Quite simply, the marketing content you create will never be good enough. You will need to produce better content every single day. Today, someone trumped your content. Just now, they become a more useful source of information to your audience. How Your Content was Trumped Content quality is relative. Your content may have been good when it was created, but now it’s merely average.

Over the years I’ve assembled a book of sample one sheets that I use to review with clients. With these 1-sheet samples I’ve been able to point out some of the “Do’s” and “Don’ts” of creating marketing one-pagers. The sample book has been a hit at the 1-sheet workshops that I help teach for ProVisors. What are you selling? What is unique about it?

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Have you ever considered the ways a blog can help you get a job? I meet a lot of young people entering the work force and I always recommend blogging as a way to get ahead … in almost any career. Here’s why: 1) Show what you’re made of. In any interview, you normally have to try to convince people that you know what you know. In a blog, you can SHOW them. They’ll do it.

Quite simply, the marketing content you create will never be good enough. You will need to produce better content every single day. Today, someone trumped your content. Just now, they become a more useful source of information to your audience. How Your Content was Trumped Content quality is relative. Your content may have been good when it was created, but now it’s merely average.

Over the years I’ve assembled a book of sample one sheets that I use to review with clients. With these 1-sheet samples I’ve been able to point out some of the “Do’s” and “Don’ts” of creating marketing one-pagers. The sample book has been a hit at the 1-sheet workshops that I help teach for ProVisors. What are you selling? What is unique about it?

Michael J. Fox kicks off as guest speaker, telling about his diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 29 and how it sparked his interest in the Internet. “I found out I was part of a community.” ” Web activism has enabled him to raise $270 million to battle Parkinson’s. Leverage skills and distribute workload. Improve forecasting effectiveness. Content.

A guest post by {grow} community member Helen Brown. Let me tell you a story: Back in the 1980s there was a brand war, and it was a big deal at the time. Named the Cola Wars, it was a knock-down, drag-out fight to decide which of the two mega brands of cola was better, Coke or Pepsi. Both felt that neither could survive while the other lived, and you, the consumer, had to choose. Every.

In our most recent #B2Bchat discussion, we looked at a number of social networks and how B2B marketers can take advantage of them, and once again I was pleased to have the opportunity to moderate the lively discussion. Rather than a deep dive into a single network or objective, the discussion quickly touched on a number of social networks or platforms.

It’s nice to know that what happens in Vegas stays there. But with Microsoft’s announced departure from the Consumer Electronics Show, there will be fewer secrets in Glitter Gulch. Or not. Steve Ballmer’s opening-day keynote last week apparently conjured up a little déjà vu , with many of his product announcements having been heard before – more than once. There is even some speculation in the press and blogosphere that Microsoft’s decision to exit may not have been entirely its own. What is interesting, though, is Microsoft’s official explanation for ending its starring role.

25 B2B marketing thought leaders answer the question "What do you expect to B2B marketers to be doing more of or differently in 2016?" The results are amazing insights around content marketing, achieving business results, alignment, employee advocacy, new technologies, customer experience and more.

Buyer personas are a crucial component of successful inbound marketing, particularly for the sales and marketing departments. After all, the marketing team needs to know to whom they are marketing, and the sales team needs to know to whom they are selling. Before you spend time and money on research to help define your personas, ask yourself these questions about your target audience. To Google?

Looking to improve revenue results? Then don’t blast out emails or buy PPC ads. Instead, invest in the foundation of great B2B marketing programs – Buyer Personas. In order to drive results, you need customer personas – deep understanding of prospective buyers of your products and services. In addition, Find New Customers worked with our client Keyedin Corp.

Social media has gone from being a pastime to a necessary component of any brand and business. To build up your stockpile of social media knowledge, you need to stay informed of the latest news and trends by reading the best blogs in the business. As a rule, I also did not include any blogs that I recommended you follow in 2011. Enjoy! Recommended blog post: 10 Rules for Epic B2B Blogging. Thanks!

With content marketing gaining in mindshare and importance, it’s valuable to keep pace with developments in this area. For the latest research on content marketing, I encourage you to download the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report published by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs (full disclosure: I helped author the report). Challenges.

When building a collaborative workplace, a “build it and they will come” attitude is a recipe for disappointment. Effective deployment strategies demand a mix of promotion, training and tolerance of the adoption strategies that employees choose. Speakers at Lotusphere today offered tips on rolling out collaboration platforms to employees who aren’t accustomed to the concept.

Here are the top Internet strategy, marketing and technology links for the week of January 14, 2012… . Some Do’s and Don’ts of Social Updating (Marketing Profs Daily). Forget Blogging as Usual: 5 Outrageous Tips for Super-sized Attention (ProBlogger). Mastering the Art of Slow Blogging (ProBlogger). Why Search Marketers Are Grabbing the Long Tail (Marketing Profs Daily).

One of my “no-brainer” marketing predictions for 2012 was that mobile advertising and app development would begin to take up more than the meager 1% or less of marketing spend as reported by businesses in 2011. Well it didn’t take long for reports to surface that both were taking off – maybe even faster than mobility experts predicted. Mobile Ad Revenue. Mobile App Usage.

Notice the (Editor’s note) on each item. Shane Snow is a New York-based tech journalist and co-founder of Contently.com , a marketplace for brand publishers and journalists. In 2010, New York City startup, Birchbox launched a blog about beauty products before it had any customers. The beauty sample delivery service – and its blog – exploded in popularity. million monthly unique visitors.

2012 Content Marketing – how did we get here so fast? I’ve been reviewing my 2011 blog posts, email broadcasts, videos , and taking stock. hope you’re doing the same, so you’ll get an idea of what’s needed for your own business in 2012. Photo courtesy Rawich/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net ). Which posts generated the most comments? What about you? What are your favorites?

Early January can be a frustrating time waiting for the corporate gurus to decide what the 2012 priorities are and what we will spend our time on this year. I too have been interested in a number of "trends" blog posts recently. Silverpop produced a list of their Top 5 Most Popular slideshares of 2011. One of the included was 7 Trends to Watch in 2012. How is that for a trendy mind shift.

By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist. Advertising Age just published its Book of Ten’s issue. In it they chronicle this year’s Top 10 Social Media Blunders. The list is entertaining and disheartening. Entertaining because of the shenanigans and plain idiotic social media mistakes committed by some very smart people. Dropping the “F” Bomb. Kenneth Cole and the Arab Spring.

gShift Labs is the first (at least that I’m aware of ) integrated software package for managing web presence optimization (WPO). Given that WPO is the fusion of SEO, social media, interactive PR , and online reputation management, that’s a tall order. But based on a good look at the product, gShift has a great headstart on meeting the challenges of this discipline. Features. Background.

Mad Marketing TV – the most TV-like show in the industry, bring you top marketing experts every week. These top experts share important marketing advice every B2B marketer can take and use immediately. Let me introduce you to the superb companies behind the show. Please check all of them out. The Sponsor (primary). Act-On Software , marketing automation software for the Fortune 5,000,000.

Another Friday is upon us, bringing with it all the goodness that so many of us look forward to each week. And that includes our roundup of the posts that got us thinking, inspired an "aha!" " moment, or just plain entertained us. Hope they do the same for you. Enjoy! Predictions for Location-Based Marketing in 2012 by Adam Steinberg @adams472. Location intelligence and mobile marketing are on the top of many trends to watch for 2012 but Steinberg takes it to the next level with 8 predictions just around location marketing. What Happens When Inbound Marketing Works?

We've got some news for you, inbound marketers, and it might come as quite a shock: your job doesn't necessarily stop at lead generation (GASP!). Just because a website visitor has downloaded your awesome ebook or registered for your informative webinar doesn't exactly mean he or she is ready to chat with one of your sales reps and jump right into a purchasing decision. Image Credit: Zazzle.com.

Once you move beyond the generic “add connections” option that LinkedIn has, you might want to specifically search for and increase your connections with people aligned with whatever connection policy you might have. The challenge is that restrictions exist within LinkedIn that may prevent you from inviting others you don’t personally know. Also mention how you can help them. LinkedIn

In his weekly B2B marketing show, Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers ( [link] ) shares a key marketing lesson using wit and humor. We hope you’ll tune in each week for a new Laugh and Learn show as well as our weekly Mad Marketing TV show. In this show, he illustrates the importance of selecting words carefully. Self Education content marketing Laugh and Learn

Image via Wikipedia. If you care about how your site is found in organic search, you must spend some of your time thinking about search engine optimization (SEO). In the olden days (2005), certain kinds of content had no shot of showing up in the search index (and thus, could never be found). Not quite. I don’t want to downplay the amazing strides that have been made by the Googlebot.

Socialbakers released an infographic a while back, providing an overview of the social networks that are important for organizations in 2012. The infographic is based on data that look at how some major brands and media companies do on the big social networks, taking into account three different parameters. In a blog post on [.]. Blog Connected marketing Research Social media marketing Facebook Google+ Jan Rezab social networks socialbakers Twitter

Pinterest has made a big splash on the social media scene, by quickly earning passionate users who log multiple hours per day on the site. Pinterest saw a 4,000% increase in site traffic from June to December of last year, and many consumer-facing and female-centric brands are already using it well. Here are four reasons B2B should start to look into using Pinterest. 1. SEO value of inbound links.